My silent steps fell on the
cracked pavement. A horn was blown in
apparent anger ahead of me. I looked up
to see black tires squealing away in disgust, frustration, anger.
“My feet are killing me,” said
the black stilettos behind me as they matched the pace of a pair of
loafers. They disappeared into one of
the little shops that lined the city street.
Poor stilettos, tourism is such a hard life.
A hand large hand reached out to
grasp a delicate one as the light changed from a red hand to a walking
man. They clutched each other as they hurried
across the street, and my blue sneakers followed them - making sure to only
step on the white blocks of paint, skipping the gray pavement. We made it to the other side just as the
forbidding red hand reappeared.
Wings fluttered as we approached
the most perennial inhabitants of the town. They fled from in front of me in
such frenzy of feathers and shrieks, that I may as well have been accursed. Perhaps to them I was. Just then, the clasped hands in front of me
reached their destination and disappeared through a door. Bells on the door and warm smiles welcomed
them in, but I walked on.
Alone, I buried my hands in
wool and tried to win the fight against the cold.
It’s a pointless, helpless fight though.
What a peculiar piece--everything is just slightly and intentionally awry and topsy-turvy, forcing the reader to try this and that to make it all scan sensibly. In fact, I had to go back to remind myself of the prompt!
ReplyDeleteBut does it work? Or is it too weird?
ReplyDeleteI don't know if it works or not--I don't think that's the question with an experiment. The question is whether it suggests new paths, undiscovered strengths; whether it was exciting to write and made you both uncertain of and interested in what was going up on the screen.
ReplyDeleteThat's the point of experiments.